Getting Started Guide
Account Basics
Logging In
In your browser, go to www.openpassport.org.
Choose a method of authentication:
- Purdue University — Log in using Purdue Career Account
- External Users:
- Facebook — Log in using Facebook credentials
- Google — Log in using Google credentials
- Passport Account — Create an account to log in to Passport if you don't have one of the above options
User Profile
Your public badges display on your profile along with your biography and contact information. Share your custom profile URL with prospective employers and include it on your LinkedIn profile and résumé to show what you know!
- Profile Image — Upload a minimum 500 x 500 px image that will be displayed as your avatar on the site.
- Biography — Add information about yourself such as a fun introduction and include your location, industry, educational and professional interests. Embed videos and images to jazz up your story.
- Custom Profile URL — Create a memorable URL to direct folks to your personal profile.
- Email Preferences — Add one or more email addresses to your account and set the default contact email Passport will use.
- Instructor Notifications — Choose whether you would like to receive email notifications when your learners submit challenge evidence (for Passport instructors only).
- Social Links — Add links to your Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn Profiles.
- Accounts — Connect your Dropbox and LinkedIn accounts to your Passport profile.
Instructor Guide
Badges
Create or edit a badge

- Choose "Instructor Workshop" From the Menu on the top right.
- Create Badge — Click the Create New Badge button on the top right of the Instructor Workshop to add a new badge.
- Edit Badge — Choose your badge from the list in the Instructor Workshop and click the gear icon > Edit Badge Details.
Badge Details
- Name — Enter a name for your badge.
- Short Description — Enter a brief description of the topic of the badge or how it will be earned. Images and YouTube videos can be added to help explain what the badge is all about.
- Customize URL — Create a memorable URL that can be used to direct learners to your badge.
- Supplemental Learning Content — Add supplemental links and/or documents that provide context for leaning activities, or that learners may need to reference or utilize to earn the badge.
- Edit Badge Metadata
- Badge Issuer Information — This data will be embedded into the badge and should ensure that the badge authenticity can be verified no matter where it is shared.
- Learning Resource Metadata — This data is based on the Learning Resource Metadata Initiative (LRMI) and will be embedded into the badge to help web searches return more relevant results of educational material based on the categories provided.
- Subject Matter Experts — Give a user the authority to approve challenge submissions.
Badge Image
Upload your own custom badge image or create one using the Badge Builder.
Read more about badge image best practices (PDF).
Badge Builder
- Style — Select the shape and border color.
- Fill — Select the color, custom image, and pattern.
- Icon — Select an icon type and color.
- Text — Custom options for adding text.
Badge Completion Requirements
- Complete All Challenges — Users will earn the badge after all of the challenges have been completed and approved.
- Earn a Minimum Score — Users will earn the badge only after achieving a certain point threshold. The number of allowed points is set on a challenge level, and then the total minimum required points that the learner must earn is set.
Awarding a badge
Badges can be awarded at any time to one or more people by supplying their email addresses and an optional custom message.
Badge Prerequisites

Allows instructors to set badges as prerequisites for earning additional badges.
Publishing a badge to a group
Publishing to a group makes the badge available to all members in one or more groups that you select.
Challenges
Passport guides learners through challenges by providing a framework to submit text or documents, share links, complete quizzes or surveys, or gather approvals. Challenges can be created by instructors and group owners, and can be as complex or as simple as needed.
Note: Challenges are optional. You may create a badge with no challenges and award it directly to learners.- How will learners complete this challenge?
- Submit Some Content — Learners may submit the content types of your choosing.
- Open Text — Users can write a brief response and embed images and videos in the rich text field.
- Files — Allows users to upload a file as evidence of their task completion (.docx, .txt, .pdf, .jpg, .pptx, .xlsx, etc.).
- Links — Users can submit any URL on the web to act as evidence of completing the task (YouTube, news article, blog post, etc.).
- Require Instructor Approval — If you'd like to review and approve submissions, be sure to choose this option. Otherwise, Passport will automatically approve all submissions to this challenge.
- Take a Quiz — Complete the task by answering a multiple-choice assessment with one single correct answer for each question. All questions must be answered correctly in order to pass the quiz.
- Automatically reset failed quiz attempts — If you'd like Passport to automatically reset failed quiz attempts so learners can re-take the quiz, be sure to choose this option. Otherwise, you will need to manually reset failed quizzes if you'd like learners to try again.
- Take a Survey — Multiple choice assessment where there are no correct answer choices. Learners complete this challenge by choosing one or more answers for each question.
- Offline Activity — Use this option if the challenge does not have deliverables that can be turned in digitally, just remember that you'll need to manually approve this challenge for each learner.
- Name — The name of the challenge.
- What do learners need to do to complete this challenge? — Add a brief description of the challenge and any instructions needed.
- Add Supplemental Material — Add a challenge introduction and any instructional material that learners may find helpful when working on the challenge.
- Due Date — The date in which all challenges must be completed in order to earn the badge (optional).
Preview badge and challenges
Before publishing a badge, it can be viewed in preview mode, which is what a learner would see if the badge was available to them.
Groups
Adding a group
Passport instructors and group owners are given the ability to create and populate new groups.
Choose "Edit Groups" from the Instructor Workshop dropdown and click the "Create a New Group" button on the upper right.
- Group Name — A unique name given for your group, typically the course or group title.
- Group Description — A brief description of your group.
- Customize URL — Create a memorable URL that can be used to direct learners to your group.
- Who can see this group?
- Private to a group of individuals — This group is visible only to instructors and learners that you invite.
- Anyone with a purdue.edu email — This group is available only to people with a purdue.edu email address.
- Open to everyone in Passport — This group is available for anyone in Passport to join.
- Advanced Settings
- Group Signups — Allow learners to sign up for group membership via a special URL that you may provide them. This link may be found after creating the group and navigating to the "Pending Groups Signup" section of the "Edit Members" page.
- Duplicate Group (available when editing an existing group) — Duplicate allows you to make a copy of all group settings, and will publish the exising badges and challenges into a new group. Perfect for semester rollovers, or just making a copy.
- Delete Group (available when editing an existing group) — Deleting a group removes it from the instructor's and learners' list of groups, and any badges published to that group will not be available for learners to complete. However, any learner that has been awarded a badge from this group will still keep their badge.
Note: Members will not be copied, nor will new copies of the existing badges and challenges be made.
Editing Members
- Pending Group Signups — If group signups was enabled on the "Edit Group" page, any pending signups can be accepted and denied here.
- Group Invitations — Group members and admins may be invited by their email addresses and will receive email notifications of their invitation.
- Invite Members — Group members will receive an email invitation with a link to click in order to join the group.
- Invite Admins — Group admins will be automatically added to the group as admins and will not need to go through the membership invitation acceptance process.
- Resend Pending Invites — If group invitations need to be sent again via email, click this link and all pending members will receive an email notification.
- Current Group Members — Current members may be deleted or added/removed from the group admin role.
Scorecard
Using the scorecard, instructors can view, score, and approve submissions to badge challenges.

- Navigate to your group and click "Scorecard" in the left sidebar, or click the scorecard icon next to your group name in the "My Groups" dropdown menu in the top navigation.
- Select a badge to view its scorecard.
- Each challenge can be viewed, approved, denied, or scored by clicking on the cell for a person's submission.
- Download CSV will generate an Excel file for external grade book usage.
The Scorecard is also available under Workshop > Edit Groups.
Learner Guide
Get Started
Passport Homepage - Current and available badges
After logging in, you will be take to the homepage which lists your current and available badges.
- Current Badges — All badges you have started working on (made a submission for) show up in this area. Badges are sorted by the last activity, whether that is an instructor approving or denying a challenge, and by your most recent submissions.
- Available Badges — All badges in your groups that you have not started on show up in this area and are sorted randomly.
Join a group
Accept a group invitation
When you are invited to join a group, you will receive an email notification with a link to join the group. Inside of Passport, a link to view pending group invitations will become visible as well.

- Click the "Join Group" link in the email invitation to join the group, or
- Click the "Pending Group Invites" icon that appears in the top navigation view all pending group invitations, then click the link for a particular group to join it.
Join an open group
There may be groups available for you to join that do not require an invitation.
- To view a list of open groups, navigate to your groups page. Click on the "Open Groups" button on the top right of the page.
- Groups listed will have a "Join" link if you are not already a member of that particular group.
View all badges for a group
The badges for that group are listed on the group's homepage.
- Navigate to the group by clicking "My Groups" in the top menu bar and then select a group from the list to view its related badges.
Complete challenges/earn badges
View all challenges for a badge
Clicking on a badge from the homepage or a group's page will show any challenges required to earn that badge. All challenges for the badge will be listed in the left pane and can be clicked on to view their details.
Submit a challenge
Click on a challenge's "Get Started" button when you are ready to complete the challenge and follow the directions for that particular challenge.
There are four main types of challenges:
- Content Challenge — A content challenge may ask for a text, file, or link submission, or a combination of media.
- Quiz — A quiz is a multiple choice assessment with one single correct answer for each question.
- Survey — A survey is a multiple choice assessment where there are no correct answer choices that must be made in order to pass.
- Offline Activity — Some activities that your instructor may ask you to complete do not have deliverables that can be turned in digitally. The instructor will manually approve this challenge when you have met their stated criteria.
Accept an awarded badge

You will receive an email notification when you have been awarded a badge in Passport.
- To accept a badge, click the "Accept badge" link in the email you received, OR
- Log in to Passport and click the "Pending Badges" from the "My Badges" dropdown. Then, choose to accept or deny the badge.
Organize badges
Badges can be categorized on one or more pages, and the privacy level for each page set to your preference.

- App of Origin — By default, you will have a page named "Passport" listed under "App of Origin" and all badges earned through Passport will be listed there.
- Add a New Page — Click the plus (+) sign next to "Pages" in the left pane
- Move Badge to a Page — Badges can be listed on one or more pages. To move a badge to a page, hover the mouse cursor over the gear icon on the badge and choose a page to move it to, or create a new page.
- Page Visibility — Choose whether to display a page's badges on your public profile by navigating to that page and then choosing "Only me" or "The world" for the visibility settings.